Melissa Shelton calls Dear Valentine her love letter to New Orleans design.

When dreaming up a name for the hospitality brand, she and her team imagined penning notes from inside the historic guest houses they were reviving.

“Long story short, we just couldn’t get over that name,” she says.

But the homes themselves, it turned out, would be the very Valentines those letters were being drafted to.

Shelton and her team put their stamp on each one. They scrawled stories through meticulously carved millwork and poetic paint selections. The resulting designs are swoon-worthy, rooted in romance and rich history.

Since its debut in 2024, Dear Valentine has grown to more than 10 properties hosting visitors in some of the city’s most vibrant neighborhoods, from the Bywater to the Garden District. The houses have multiple bedrooms, courtyards and gathering spaces, ripe for entertaining and hosting celebrations.

Each house is drenched in deep hues, punctuated by whimsical rugs, custom textiles and historic details like stained glass windows.

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Coming Home

Well before she hosted her first Dear Valentine guest, Shelton spent more than a decade constructing a career in luxury furniture and interior design.

The LSU grad studied interior design and minored in architectural history. Stints at Carl Hansen & Søn, Artek and Design Within Reach would eventually lead her to a long-term leadership role at European furniture brand Vitra. There, she served as its North American president for nearly seven years.

When her son was born in October 2023, becoming a mother helped bring clarity to a new path she had long been contemplating. She was ready to begin a business of her own, built on her eye for bold interiors and her commitment to meaningful historic preservation. After living in New York and Los Angeles, Shelton felt increasingly drawn back toward Louisiana.

“It just was like this thing that was bubbling up inside of me, and I knew that it was now or never,” she recalls. “I just started growing hungrier and hungrier to do my own thing.”

Still, she wrestled with the concept of letting go of a leadership position that had become part of her identity. She says it meant asking herself, “Who am I without this?”

The answer, it turned out, was inside the Bouligny house. Shelton and her husband had purchased the Uptown, three-bedroom Victorian sight unseen during the pandemic’s early days. Originally intended as a second residence, the home would eventually become Dear Valentine’s origin story.

The project introduced Shelton to the process of restoring a historic building, as well as to Louisiana’s historic preservation tax credit programs, which would later make Dear Valentine’s portfolio of projects financially feasible.

By the time Shelton had officially departed Vitra to focus on Dear Valentine, she was all-in on historic preservation.

“You cannot make things like they used to,” she says. “When you purchase an older home, there is just an inherent quality that exists.”

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Preservation Over Perfection

Like an adoring love letter, each Dear Valentine house tells a story.

The portfolio ranges from Victorian and Greek Revival homes to Italianate mansions and carriage houses, each lovingly restored to feel immersive, intentional and authentic. Think: 150-year-old heart pine floors, elaborate millwork, decorative trim and stone fireplace mantels.

Shelton wanted to challenge the aesthetics she saw dominating real estate. She envisioned Dear Valentine as the antidote to cookie-cutter flips. Contractor-grade finishes? Nope. Millennial gray? Bye. Color palettes and materials align with each property’s history.

Shelton has worked closely with partners, including branding studio Also Known As, designers like Logan Killen Interiors, Studio BKA Architecture & Interiors, and Ashley Autumn of Haumn Studio, and architecture firms like Cicada to incorporate rich colors and historic references.

Today’s buyers might seek large open floor plans or ample closet space. But Shelton believes the quirks of older homes are part of their allure.

“We prioritize keeping that odd wall that’s in that weird spot, because it has a beautiful historic fireplace on it,” she says. “And as a result … you have these more cozy, intimate spaces instead of this big open great room that’s shiny and new but a little bit overwhelming.”

Now a six-bedroom guesthouse, Chartres 1883 is a Bywater property that has served many roles over its lifetime. It has been both a bar and a feed store. Imagining the scenes that might once have played out inside its walls, Shelton commissioned local illustrator Ashlee Arceneaux Jones of Smallchalk to create a mural depicting a scene inspired by that history.

At Bouligny, maroon and light blue tiles around a fireplace she’d spotted in another Victorian home inspired a checkerboard pattern at the pool’s waterline, for example.

Because rather than erase a building’s past, Shelton prefers to layer upon it.

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Crescent City Connections

While Dear Valentine is a hospitality brand, Shelton is equally adamant that it serves as a platform for collaboration and creativity. Its homes are canvases for local designers, craftspeople, artists and historic preservation specialists to leave their own mark.

“We could not have done this without the talent that exists in New Orleans and the people who we collaborated with,” Shelton says.

Meanwhile, guests can record memories inside spaces that capture the magic that lured them to visit the city in the first place.

It’s why Shelton says there was never a question where she would launch Dear Valentine.

“We’re doing this in New Orleans,” she says. “It’s very important to me that New Orleans stays on the map when it comes to well-designed hospitality experiences.”